Chatto has released its 2024 Tasmanian pinot noirs, and added a Corton Grand Cru to its range

Jim Chatto is usually based in Tasmania’s Glaziers Bay, where he makes pinot noir under the Chatto label with his wife, Daisy, but he’s halfway through harvest in Burgundy when I reach out to ask about his 2024 vintage releases.

“After losing our crop to smoke taint in 2019, we took the kids out of school for a term and headed to Burgundy for harvest,” Jim explains. “Through mutual friend Philip Rich we met Jane Eyre, and ended up making a small parcel of Premier Cru Savigny-Lès-Beaune.

“The friendship has blossomed and morphed into a lovely collaboration,” he adds. “Each year, Jane makes some Tassie pinot with us under her eponymous label, and we make several parcels of Burgundy under our label at her winery.”

Jim Chatto.

Jim founded Chatto in 2000 to continue his love affair with Tasmanian pinot noir after a job took him back to the Hunter Valley. Six years later, he and Daisy bought the Glaziers Bay site in the Huon Valley, and in 2017, they returned to Tasmania permanently.

As well as the Burgundies – two Premier Cru Savigny-Lès-Beaunes, plus a brand-new Corton Grand Cru – the Chatto range includes two estate wines (Isle and Intrigue), a handful of single-vineyard grower wines (Killara Farm, Seven Inch and Bird), and a couple of regional blends (Lutruwita and Franklinii).

A third blend, Yarraensis, made from Yarra Valley fruit, is the only Chatto wine to come from the Australian mainland.

Most the wines from Chatto’s 2024 vintage were released in May, with the two estate-wines released in August. “Overall, it was an excellent vintage for Tasmanian pinot noir,” says Jim. “The 2024s have more flesh and structure than the previous couple of years, providing great early drinking yet the depth of flavour to age well.”

Inside Chatto's cellar door.

Generally, all the wines are wild-fermented in open “pinot pots” with some whole-bunch (although “with the intention of being almost invisible”), although “each vineyard, and parcel within, sees a different approach in response to the site and the season,” he says. The flagship Isle is the only wine to see no new oak, for example, and the clones that go into it change year on year – the ’24 is roughly 70 per cent 777, the rest equal parts 667 and Abel – whereas Intrigue is always blended from all eight clones in the estate vineyard.

Bird is the prettiest, lightest framed and most elegant wine in the range, with very fine tannins. Killara, which comes from the Brinktop Vineyard in Coal River, is muscular and dark-fruited with a gravelly structure. Seven Inch, made from a tiny beachside vineyard close to Chatto’s estate, is the most deceiving, Jim says. “The tannins appear soft and velvet like, yet there’s an underlying power which sneaks up on you.”

With a total production of around just 3000 dozen per year, Chatto wines can be hard to find – stock is "pretty much spoken for" on release, says Jim – although there are limited quantities available in selected wine stores and restaurants, if you're quick. See how Dave Brookes scored the 2024 vintage wines below. 

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